


Just Another Near-Death Experience

by Princess of Geeks (Princess)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode Related, First Time, M/M, POV First Person, Romance, Season 3, The Devil You Know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-14
Updated: 2010-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-07 23:36:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess/pseuds/Princess%20of%20Geeks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of "The Devil You Know", Daniel realizes something: all his reluctance to show Jack how much he cares has vanished.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Another Near-Death Experience

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Green Grrl](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Green+Grrl).



> Written for the Cliche-athon in 2009 at the JackDanielPromptFic Community on Dreamwidth.

"For God's sake, Daniel, sit down! Watching you pace and fidget is making me more nuts than you are, which is saying ... a lot."

I scrubbed a hand through my hair, and turned to glance at Jack. He was propped on the couch in his living room, pillows where I had stuffed them around him and under his knees. He had one leg bent beside him, and the injured one resting on the coffee table. In the kind of weird coincidence that should be expected and not surprising by now, given the nature of our friendship, he brought the bottle of beer I'd just handed him to his mouth, and drank. At exactly the same time that I did the same thing.

I turned away mid-gulp, and made myself go to the fire. The logs and kindling were ready. It only took a second to start the gas and set the kindling to crackling cheerfully. I'd brought a very cranky Jack home from the SGC after his infirmary stay, protesting and complaining all the way, a vintage performance. But despite his whining, I knew that he had fully accepted that he'd have to be on crutches for a week or more. Janet had explained the rules to him in detail, but even without her explanation he certainly had enough experience to know that if he, through impatience, opened the wound he'd gotten from the Hell guard's staff weapon, he'd simply lengthen his recuperation time, and his boredom.

So he'd let me settle him on the sofa, and let me wait on him. But as always, he reserved the right to protest. I think he'd come to tolerate my presence better than did practically anybody else's. We'd gone to Hell and back, together -- another impossible, unbelievable experience we'd shared -- and lived to tell the tale. Persephone herself had nothing on us, now. The thought, and its connotative echoes, sent a shiver down my spine as I watched the flames lick at the wood.

I'd been cleared to drive him home, because I was, myself, not much the worse for wear -- just a couple of self-induced Jaffa punches to the gut and the jaw, and of course the aftereffects of the Blood of Sokar -- headache, a vague nausea, plus an ugly tape-loop of real and false memories which twined together like a Moebius strip. But I'd do for a somewhat appropriate nursemaid for Jack. I had babied him to the sofa, ignored his whining, and now I drank his too-light American beer and waited for the Thai food to be delivered, our very late supper. Except, I couldn't settle beside him, and placate him by fighting with him over the remote. I couldn't even try to relax. Not yet. Instead, I paced, and he complained about me making him nuts. Oh, God -- if he only knew.

I was restless, because tonight, I wanted to tell him. I wanted to tell him how I felt. Objectively speaking, nothing had changed -- I still knew that my feelings, and the impulse to share them, were selfish and risky and might result in nothing but an assignment to another team. But it was incontrovertible that since Sha're's death, this yearning, and this inner pressure to speak, had only grown. This latest mission in particular seemed to increase the urgency I felt, with the "last words before we die" shadow that had hung over it like the fumes of those underground fires. Netu had significantly increased all the various and variegated longings I had been feeling for a very long time.

I wanted to tell him.

I paced, and waited for delivery of our dinner, and the words pushed at my lips, wanting to be spoken.

_Jack, I think you should know... _

__

__

_Jack, the time will never really be right for this, so now is as good a ..._

J_ack, I don't expect you to do anything, but it's only fair that you understand..._

_ Jack, do you think you could ever ..._

The selfish, needy rehearsal, the litany of longing, went on and on inside my head.

Oh, I well knew the arguments against saying anything, ever. In fact I made them to myself, on a weekly basis. Forcing Jack to confront that I was in love with him in much more than a brotherly way would be stupid and reckless and make no legitimate sense. But the fact remained: at the back of my awareness, all these months, my feelings for him had been strengthening. I had been fully aware of them ever since I had had to come back to Earth in order to marshal the resources to rescue Sha're, but in the years since, they had only continued to grow. Proximity, friendship, shared danger, all these things had fed my attachment to him. I had always appreciated Jack, felt a strong connection between us, from the very first day we met, but while the search for Sha're consumed my energy and haunted my dreams, she ruled my heart as well. She was my focus, my guiding star, until all hope of saving her was gone.

And now, between the memories that Apophis had found to exploit, and the adrenaline ebb of a closer-than-usual brush with death, I was nearer than ever before to telling him.

I turned to stare at him, a forbidden secret pleasure, and I held my beer between us like a barrier. I could caress him with my eyes and no one the wiser, and I did that a lot. Ignoring the television, he'd tilted his head back against the soft cushions, his own beer resting on his uninjured thigh. The stretched-out line of his neck begged for kissing. He must have felt my gaze, because he slowly raised his head and looked at me, and his expression was serious, questioning. I turned to the dark window to hide the sudden heat in my face.

I wanted to tell him. More than ever. Yes, it was reckless, pointless, even wrong. But I wanted to. Tonight, I could tell, the words were so very close to being said.

The doorbell let me postpone any blurting attempts at self-revelation a little longer. I paid the delivery girl, and arranged the food on the coffee table. Jack and I ate quickly, sitting next to each other on the couch. The food seemed unusually good, even though it was the same take-out from the same little family-owned place we always got when we were in the mood for Thai. Probably another side-effect of the near-death experience. It wasn't a cliche that such occasions made you savor everything, and the most familiar and comforting things most of all.

"Is it just me, or did they really hit it out of the park this time?" Jack said, reading my mind again, matching my thoughts, as he dug in the corner of the carton for the very last scrap of shrimp and peppers. "Mama must have been cooking tonight, and we lucked out."

"Again," I smiled. "Nothing like a brush with death to make you appreciate a good meal." I kept my tone light, though my heart was hammering. This latest subtle signal that we were on the same page made me hope, suddenly, wildly, that maybe we'd be on the same page regarding my secret as well. But that was wishful thinking. Wasn't it? I studied him as the old arguments went round and round in my head, familiar background noise. He had dark circles under his eyes, and he looked worn and tired, but also, now, peaceful. His injury wasn't giving him too much trouble at the moment, and I knew he appreciated our escape from Hell as much as I did.

He turned his head and caught me staring for the second time that night. Instead of frowning or looking puzzled, he swallowed without looking away. A corner of his mouth quirked in a tentative smile. He seemed almost... shy. Then he grinned and reached to slap my knee. "Hey. I didn't get a chance to say this in the debriefing, but good job on getting the communicator back from Sokar's Jaffa. It was pretty much the key to the whole rescue thing."

"Thank you," I said, and concentrated on checking all the containers, one after the other, making sure there wasn't a fragrant last bite waiting for me to finish it off. Jack's praise was what I always held out for, even more than the general's. I was a little embarrassed by that, the fact that his words meant so much to me, but it was true. "We all did our part on this one. Especially Sam. It was what you call a classic team effort."

"Yeah," he said, glancing wryly at his leg, but he forbore to make a comment about how stupid he'd been to get himself shot up like that. It had taken every ounce of his control, I knew, to bury his heroic tendencies and let those Jaffa escort Sam away. And they could have shot any of us at any time, and not in the leg either. I didn't blame him for the protest that had resulted in that wound.

Yeah. This had been a close one.

"Hey," Jack said, and he looked concerned. Maybe my expression had shown that I'd gotten a little too caught up in the memories of the mission not only from hell, but to hell. I raised my eyebrows. He continued, "I'd much rather be eating _pad Thai_ with you than whatever last meal Binar used to serve up in Cellblock Six Sixty-Six."

"We lived to order takeout another day. _And_ drink cheap beer," I said, summoning my cheerfulness from wherever it had momentarily hidden itself, and I took a swallow and parked the bottle on the table. When I looked up, he was still looking at me and smiling, and all of a sudden my tail-chasing thoughts and my anguished logical reservations were swept up in a rush of affection and gratitude. Here we were. Together. Alive. I leaned closer, looking into his eyes, my pulse accelerating with every inch I leaned, and he didn't look away and he didn't move. His grin faded to haunt one corner of his lips, and his gaze dropped to my mouth. Then he met my eyes again, and in them I read astonishment and a kind of disbelieving, stunned happiness. He recognized what I was doing just as I realized I was actually doing it. I leaned all the way in, and I kissed Jack.

He closed his eyes just before the moment that I had to close mine, everything getting blurry and hard to see.

His lips were soft and damp. He tasted of peppers and the sweet bite of the beer, and he definitely kissed back. His hand was on my shoulder.

The kiss was long and careful. Sometime in the middle of it I understood that I was holding my breath, and I made myself stop it and exhale; I was already light-headed enough. Then I breathed, consciously and carefully, and allowed myself the luxury of savoring Jack's mouth. I slid a hand around to cup the back of his neck. His hand tightened on my shoulder and his other hand rested just above my belt, against my side. The kiss went on and on -- suspended, warm, soft.

Finally, "That was too close a call, on Netu," I whispered, and leaned my cheek against his.

"Daniel," he said, and it wasn't a question or a warning. More like he couldn't quite believe it was me, there with him, and he had to say my name to reassure himself of the fact of my presence.

His arm slid around my shoulders, and then we were kissing again. Not so carefully, this time. More urgently, and with more intent. Not so amazed, and much more aroused. It felt as if he was making up for lost time. Which perhaps he was, as much as I.

"God, yes," he whispered, after a while, and he turned his head to pant, holding me close now, perhaps by that gesture trying to counteract any idea that he was turning away by turning his head. I was feeling, as if he'd transferred it through the kiss, the astonishment and half-embarrassed delight I'd seen in his eyes.

"Daniel," he said, and he leaned back a little to look at me, and put his hand to my cheek. "I didn't know if you'd ever...."

"What?" And I nuzzled into his palm, and kissed it.

He smiled and seemed to catch his breath. "Make a move."

"I guess it was up to me, wasn't it?" A quite unrealistic joy was bubbling up. I had been so focused on myself, on the risk I might be running,that I had neglected completely to take account of any carefully encrypted signals Jack might have been telepathically broadcasting to me, these last months. Of course the commanding officer ethos would weigh on him. Of course he would feel he couldn't do anything without a clear signal from me, even now, no matter how he felt.

Perhaps my unconscious mind had read more of him than I could. Perhaps it had simply had enough of loneliness and fear and loss. Perhaps that's why it had chosen to tonight to override all my logical objections. All at once my concerns fell away like an old coat.

_Jack._

I smiled, and kissed him some more, opening my mouth, inviting, and when he opened to me in turn, my heartrate doubled and the room seemed to grow hot. I let my hand smooth down along his shirt, and when I reached his waistband he inhaled, sharply, and his hand tightened on my shoulder. The bulge in the front of his loose jeans was warm and so firm. I cupped it tighter, and that made him groan and push his tongue into my mouth.

I lost track of time, then, drifting in a haze of warmth and arousal, exploring his mouth, gently mapping the details of his erection through denim and cotton.

And then it was my turn to groan, because he'd found a carelessly tucked segment of my shirt, and eased his hand under it until his palm was resting warmly against my spine.

"God," he said. "I don't... Do you want to do this here?"

"Too teen-age for you?" It was disorienting, how we'd gone from the familiarity of dinner in his living room, to this new and intense thing, with never a pause. I should have known. I should have seen. But Jack, as always, had apparently been way ahead of me. I could hear him -- _'For a smart guy, Danny, you can be pretty clueless.'_

"Too vertical. Too ... messy," he said, and his voice got rough and suggestive on the fourth word.

I kissed him by way of punctuation and pulled away. He'd need his crutches again to get up the stairs and down the hall, and then.... I had to tug at my crotch because of the effect the thoughts of "next" were having.

His crutches were stowed at the end of the sofa, and when I turned back to hand them to him, he was gazing at me. He'd tossed all his pillows aside, and the table was pushed back at an angle so that he'd have room to get up. His look was nothing short of incendiary. I swallowed.

When he had the crutches, he levered himself up before I could step closer and offer help. He navigated around the furniture and up the steps expertly, and I winced to think of all the experience he had with that -- the broken leg he'd suffered the first year, the knee surgery, and, before I'd met him, even worse things.

I followed him down the hall, matching his pace. He let the crutches clatter to the floor by his bed. I moved to the other side and flipped the covers down, my heart hammering, my mouth dry.

He said, "Ordinarily I'd want to make this part last, but under the circumstances..." he winced as he shifted his weight, and covered it by stripping his shirt and undershirt over his head without even unbuttoning.

My clothes came off too, just as fast. I was thinking about Jack, about how I'd seen him in the showers a thousand times, but how this was so, so different. Naked, I eased across the mattress, and in behind him. He'd shoved his crutches under the bed and was sitting, shirtless, carefully maneuvering his jeans down over his bandage. I ran my hand down his warm back. He was scuffed up, with one particularly large and ugly bruise on his ribs, and that was just the immediately visible damage from the mission. My breath was coming fast and I was already so hard.

Impossible, to be able to touch like this, to caress him with more than eyes only. Impossible, but now real. I balanced on my knees, both hands drawn irresistibly to skim his shoulders, to map the muscles of his arms, cup his bony elbows.

His breath caught and he looked aside, trying to catch a glimpse of me, his profile highlighted by the lamp. So handsome.

"You're distracting me," he sing-songed.

"Sorry," I said, not feeling the least bit contrite, and there was a laugh in my voice, and I moved even closer. I nudged my knees around him and pressed my mouth to his nape. He groaned, and rolled to his good side, his pants only partially off, and injured as he was, he wrestled me down on top of him. Of course I didn't resist at all. Suddenly we were chest to chest, and kissing again. His arms were so warm, and so were his roaming hands, touching and exploring, making me gasp into his mouth, striking sparks everywhere his fingertips ran.

Panting, I managed to raise up enough to help him finish undressing. We got his jeans over the bandage and tossed to the floor, and then I lay close beside him, sliding a knee under his good leg. My palm slid down the line of hair on his stomach, and he gasped and let his head fall back on the pillows. He clutched my shoulder. His erection was something I'd never seen before tonight, but had certainly let myself fantasize about often, overriding my logical objections. Jack had never demonstrated a hint of body modesty, or nervousness about being naked in front of others, not even when Sam or one of the other combat-team's women were around, and he didn't now. I couldn't decide what to look at: his expression, focused and happy and a little amazed, or his rapidly filling cock.

Well, I had to focus somewhere, and one particular spot was so tempting. I cupped my palm gently around the base of his erection, covering his balls, then slid my hand up and around. He was already quite hard, his balls and the skin of his thighs radiating heat, the skin of the shaft cooler. The tip was smooth and firm when I closed my fist around it. Jack exhaled and blinked. He tried to reach for my erection, too, but jarred his injury and winced and subsided back onto his pillow, eyes closed. It made me hesitate, and so to encourage me he lightly covered my hand with his.

"Jack," I breathed, and pressed my erection against his hip, and touched him as he was urging me to do.

He followed me with his hand as I stroked him, tightening leg muscles to lift his shaft against my grip, but that made him wince too, so he chuckled a little and gave himself over to me, moving his hands on my arms, restlessly stroking, as if he couldn't get enough of touching me either, despite the fact that he couldn't move very much. I leaned to kiss him again, and as our lips came together he said, "Oh, yeah," because the change of angle had brought my cock within reaching distance. He stroked it once, sending a spangle of sensation through me, but then let go to pull me closer, his free arm around my shoulders, his other arm trapped between us.

We gasped, and kissed, and murmured each others' names, and all those inadequate metaphors for how his skin felt became a whirling bonfire of thoughts -- his touch was fire, flame, fuel. I pressed against him, tasting all the skin I could reach, gently stripping his cock.

He grunted, mouth wet, and hitched a little farther toward me, releasing my shoulders, and then I could feel his knuckles against my erection. His forehead knocked against my cheekbone, the urgency we both felt making us clumsy. He shifted, switched hands, cursed, and one of his hand came to rest at the small of my back, pushing me toward him. Bringing our cocks together. He was leaking now, and I was beginning to. I swept my thumb over the heads, enjoying the new slippery feeling.

"Oh, god, Jack," I blurted, and we moved together then, two hands, gripping and stroking, as rhythmic now as we'd been clumsy a moment before. Firm, and wet, and the pleasure was obliterating -- how he felt in my fist, what he was doing to me, what we did for each other.

The bliss engulfed me. I moaned, and pushed against him, pressed to him from shoulders to knees, and we thrust slickly into our joined hands. He said my name, breathlessly, over and over. And then, he seized, and came, and I followed him over the edge, everything but his skin and his scent fading into a red warm blur.

We leaned together, the only measure of time our ragged breathing. The air on my skin was cool where I wasn't pressed stickily against Jack's skin. He caressed me, his fingers firm enough to stay just this side of ticklish, exploring me as I softened, lifting my balls, caressing them too. If he was doing it to me, he must like it, I reasoned, so I roused myself from the pool of ecstasy where I was drifting and touched him the same way. It tore a satisfied, surprised groan from him.

We were definitely lying in a less-than-metaphorical pool, as well, but I couldn't move away from him yet.

"Is this good?" he whispered tightening his arm around me, continuing to touch. "You like this, after?"

"It's right on the edge of tickling," I answered. "But I love touching you."

He let go of my dick, then, and instead, he smoothed that arm around me, too, getting even more of our skin together, and we were kissing. His mouth was cooler, now, and roughened by all the panting we'd been doing.

"Jack," I murmured, and squeezed him gently one last time. I pulled back to see his face. I wanted his eyes, I wanted to see how he felt. He looked so tender and open, so surprised and yet so peaceful. Full of wonder. So incredibly handsome.

I grinned and lifted a sticky hand to his cheek before I remembered.

"Oops," I said, but I didn't take my hand away. His grin widened, and he brought my head to his and kissed me again. I drowned in his mouth.

Finally, "Don't move," I said against his lips. His fingers trailed along my leg.

I slowly unstuck myself from him. My entire skin seemed reluctant to lose his embrace. From the bathroom I brought towels, and one of the water bottles he always kept stashed under the sink. Propped up on one elbow, he drank and watched me, as I wiped us up.

When I was settled against him again, after sharing his water and setting it aside, he nuzzled my temple, sighed, and said, "I wasn't sure you'd want this. Ever, I mean."

I nuzzled him back, and pulled the covers up around us. "I always wanted this. I just wanted a lot of other things too."

"...I get that. Now." Another pause, to kiss and pet. "I did get that you were interested. I'm gathering you knew I was too."

I smiled, my mouth against his neck. "I hoped. When I wasn't trying to argue myself out of the whole crazy thing. You know all those arguments better than I do, I imagine." He sighed, agreeing. His hand was around my nape, the thoughtless, gentle claiming inherent in the gesture making me warm, making me shiver. _Oh, Jack._ "This is so good. And this shouldn't feel so familiar."

"And yet." He made his voice light, but I could hear the depth of emotion underneath. It made my throat tight. I put my arm around him.

"And yet. ....Your leg all right?"

"As all right as it can be."

"We didn't jostle it too much? Do you want another painkiller?"

"Nah. Let it ride." He was stroking my hair, now, and my shoulder. It was lulling. There was so much more I wanted to say, but it could all wait. I fell asleep, skin to skin with Jack.

Morning was just as easy as that first kiss had been, suffused with the same sense of impossible familiarity. There was coffee and toast in bed, with a chaser for Jack of painkillers. My headache was completely gone -- the power of natural endorphins, I imagined. I offered him a dose of the muscle relaxant Janet had sent, fully expecting him to decline, but instead he smirked at me and washed it down with orange juice.

Then we sprawled in his bed, still naked, still unwilling to stop touching, him scribbling in a crossword book, me pretending to do some work-related research but in reality getting sucked into reading an argument on an Oriental Institute blog that I dared not even sign into anymore. We somehow managed to keep in continuous skin contact -- a hand on a thigh, a shoulder pressed to a shoulder. I felt an echo of those rare childhood birthdays when I'd received something thoughtful and picked out just for me, something I'd wanted -- something I never could quite believe was really mine.

It was almost a relief to stop looking at Jack's face and lose myself in an academic argument, the very same way, I suspected, that he was diverting himself with a crossword. I stole glances at him from time to time. I couldn't quite believe this all had happened. That we had come together, that we had made love. Because that's how it felt, though the words had not been said. In fact, I might have lapsed into outright denial again if we hadn't still been naked, still lying in the bed where it had happened. I shook my head at myself and tried to focus on the words on the screen. Jack's laptop trackpad was annoying and didn't work the way I was used to -- more evidence that I was somewhere strange and new.

I was lost in reading, tapping my cheek with my thumb, when Jack nudged me. He had put aside the crossword.

"The drugs have taken effect," he said, and his gaze was dark and knowing.

"And?" I said, which was, in a way, playing dumb, because I suddenly understood why he had not balked at taking either one of the heavy-duty prescriptions this morning -- so unlike him. My heart started beating faster.

"And," he echoed, flipping the sheet and blankets down to show me he was half hard, "thus, you can have your way with me again without worrying if you're hurting me. Because believe me -- the colonel is feeling no pain." There was an urgency, a demanding note, in his voice that I hadn't heard last night.

I smiled, trying to keep it light, but my heart turned over and I could feel the blood rushing to my groin. I put aside Jack's laptop and set my glasses on top of it.

Then I turned to him, closed my eyes, leaned on my elbow, and bent to put my mouth over the head of his cock.

His reaction was instantaneous and quite gratifying. "Oh, God, Daniel," he choked, and he put his hands in my hair and arched up to meet me.

He tasted wonderful, rounding into my mouth, firming as I sucked him, and I took my time, exploring with lips and tongue the changing textures of his skin, nuzzling at his balls, taking in his scent. I teased him with my throat, too, besides sucking and licking the head, increasing the intensity until he was groaning and saying my name, and until I couldn't wait any more either. I shifted my weight so that I could cup his balls with one hand while bracing his shaft with the other, and sucked and stroked him, working all around the crown with my tongue, until his groans turned to panting gasps, and then he was coming, arching up to me again. I'd been leaning on his uninjured thigh, hoping to keep him from moving too much, since there would be no pain from his wound to signal if he did move more than he should, and I could feel the twitches and ebbing jolts of his climax even in the muscles there. I smiled, and swallowed one last time, and pulled away gently. I arranged his still-hard dick against the crease in his thigh, and he just lay there and let me. His arms rested above his head, elbows cocked. I fit myself against his side and kissed him, and he kissed me back, as uncoordinated as if he'd just awakened.

"You know we shouldn't let the full effect of those muscle relaxants go to waste," he said, when I finally pulled back from the endlessly fascinating depths of his mouth. Apparently it was obvious how much going down on him aroused me. He groped for my erection and gave it a stroke, one careful light sweep of his hand. I moaned and squeezed my eyes shut. "This show's not over yet," he continued, his voice an amused purr.

I was startled into opening my eyes. I stared, and he stared back. "Are you inviting me to -- top you?" It wasn't that I couldn't quite believe it. It was that.... okay, I couldn't quite believe it.

"Stuff's in the drawer," he directed, his voice more of a growl now, and without leaning up or moving anything but one hand he pulled me in for another deep, lingering kiss. His hand was heavy on the back of my head. I groaned. Images crowded my mind, a confused panorama of various archived views of him -- glimpses of his ass in the locker room, glimpses from which I'd always quickly averted my eyes. His deep, knowing brown glance. The way he smiled at me when I said something clever or silly on an offworld hike. And a favorite memory: Once, when we'd gated into a hot summer day, and he'd let Teal'c stand guard while he bent shirtless over a water tank and sluiced the dirt of our trail from his chest and shoulders. He'd caught me looking that day, caught me watching his ribs, the pull of his back muscles, and yes, his butt.

And now. Here he was, displaying himself for me, inviting. When the kiss ended, I put a hand on his chest to anchor myself, and turned to open the drawer one-handed and find what we'd need. He took one of the rubbers from me. His bandaged leg was nearest, so he couldn't roll to me.

"C'mere," he said, that growling note still in his voice, and he pushed at my leg, curling up a little, making his ab muscles ripple as they worked, and I let him move me, caught again in the amazement of the permission I had to look at him, to touch, to love. He wanted me to kneel beside him, so he could reach me to roll on the rubber, and when it finally sank in what he was doing, I put my hand over his. He gave me a quizzical eyebrow.

I said, "Is that for my sake, or for yours?"

"Never assume," he said lightly.

"I'm not. I'm asking. I haven't been with anyone since Sha're. If you have, we can use this, but if not ... we don't need it."

He pinned me with that dark gaze again, and I could feel the intensity behind it, the unspoken words, the unvoiced feelings. I didn't know what they all were, but I could feel them. I put a hand to his cheek, and clenched my teeth against all the words that wanted to pour out. I wanted to babble, to say too much, to make protestations of loyalty, of love, that I didn't know if he would welcome. He didn't smile. He just stared at me, smoldering, and then he tossed the circle of rubber over his shoulder. I heard the tiny sound of its smack and ricochet off the wall. Then he was rolling away, showing me his back, bending in the middle to push his buttocks toward me.

I could hardly breathe. I lay down behind him, feeling for the bottle where I'd tossed it onto the pillows, and I ran my hand down his spine.

"So beautiful," I murmured, hoping he wouldn't think it was a poor choice of words to describe him, but "beautiful" was how he looked to me. He snorted, dismissing my evaluation, but he pushed himself closer, reaching back, groping for my hip. He drew up his injured leg, bending his knees, and smashed a pillow under his neck.

"I don't need your fingers," he said, his tone abrupt, each word bitten off. "I play with myself this way."

"God," I said again, as a wash of lust swept down my torso, and I fumbled with the bottle, getting some of the gel onto myself, the sudden cold giving the illusion of shocking some sense into me. I tried to clear my head. I was about to do this with Jack O'Neill. Penetrate Jack O'Neill. It wasn't a fantasy.

"Daniel," he said, as if I were making him wait, as if that was hard and his patience was running out.

"Jack," I gasped, and I held his hip, held myself, and I didn't want to jar him or jostle him, and oh, God, all my half-formed, confused conceptions about what he did in bed, who he was, what he would tolerate, what he would accept from me, crashed under a red wave of sensation. He took me in easily, like he wanted it, like he did this all the time.

"Daniel," he groaned into the pillow, and twitched toward me, as if wanting to push onto me but not wanting to move too much.

That would be my part. And so I did. I moved. I pushed into him, surrounding myself with that tight warmth, trying for steady, until I was in all the way, and I had to close my eyes at the ecstasy. I molded myself against his back, carefully fitting my leg under and behind his.

"God, Daniel," he said, and we both moaned, then, and his hand was like a claw on my hip, and I ground into him, trying not to jolt or jar him, trying to make it smooth and deep and good. Because it was so goddamned good for me. He was tight, and the lube made everything so slick, and I eased in and slid out and kept pushing against him, buried deep, on fire.

Impossible to tell how long it lasted, but however long it was, it wasn't enough. How could a person ever want to leave paradise? Eventually, the slow fuse of the pleasure we made together burned down to its end, and my orgasm blasted through me like sheet lightning. Everything went white, and when I could think and see again I was sprawled over his shoulders, breathing hard, my pulse pounding in my neck and in my lips.

"Jack," I murmured, and he hummed something in answer and squeezed my hand. _I should get off him, I should make sure we haven't made his wound bleed._ My thoughts were muzzy and unfocused, like I'd forgotten to drink any coffee after an allnighter. I carefully pulled away from him and flopped onto my back. I was dizzy. His hand fell to my shoulder, then fell away. I turned my head. He was lying on his back beside me, a fist on his forehead, his eyes closed.

I sat up and fumbled for my glasses so I could check him. His bandage seemed to be fine.

"I should clean up," I muttered, and he didn't answer, still lying there on his back, eyes closed.

When I came back from his bathroom with a warm washcloth for him, he caught my eye before he rolled, wincing, to his side to let me clean him up, and there was something new in his glance, something that made me frown. I got rid of the cloth and washed my hands and when I returned to his bed, he had heaved himself to half sitting, propped in pillows, and he was looking into the distance. I got into bed beside him and cupped his shoulder.

"Look," he began. "If this was an impulsive thing, a comfort thing, after that god-awful mission, I can deal with that. We can leave it at this, if that's how it needs to be." He pulled my hand away from his shoulder and held it on his lap, away from his bandage, running his fingertips down my fingers, making me shiver. He looked at our hands, not at my face. I always responded to his touch; always had, always would. But that wasn't what he was saying.

He looked me up and down, then, lingering at my groin, almost as if he were memorizing me, to save the sight up for later. Finally he met my eyes. "Getting involved with someone on your team is almost never a good idea," he said. His smile was a grimace. "It's hard enough for you to take orders from me in the first place. This could make everything worse."

All I could do was shake my head and squeeze his hand. Why was he giving me an out? Did he think I needed or, God forbid, _wanted_ one? Or was the out for him? I took a deep breath and tried to figure out what to say.

He looked away, still holding my hand between his, but his careful tracing of my fingers stilled. He said, "And I know it's too soon for you. To make any decisions about your life. Way too soon."

He meant too soon after Sha're; I could read that easily. He closed his eyes, waiting for the axe to fall.

"If the next thing you say is 'So thank you for the screw, Danny, and see you around,' I'm going to punch you in the face," I said, trying for deadpan. It got his attention the way I hoped it would. His eyes flew open and he stared at me, frowning. Maybe a little pissed off. _Good._

I got to my knees, aware that would make him look again, make him run his eyes up and down my naked body, and he did. He looked, as I knelt there, so close to him, with the smell and taste of him lingering on my skin. I bit my lip and ran my hand along his arm, down his ribs, down his thigh as far as I could reach, and came back up, lingering a minute to cup his soft, warm package and scrunch my fingers into his pubic hair. I never wanted to stop touching him. I never wanted to lose this now that I had it. How could I make him see? Well, with Jack, the direct approach usually worked.

"I love you," I said, and his frown deepened. "Don't pull back from this. I didn't think you'd need to protect yourself from me." I leaned in and kissed him, and his lips were chilly, as if he was shocked. As if I'd shocked him, talking about love. I put my forehead against his. "I can't lose you now."

He sighed, long and deep, and his hand came up to cup my face and press my cheek to his. His stubble was scratchy. Under my lips, his lips were smiling again.

"Okay, well, then, how about, 'Thank you for the screw, Danny, can we do it again tonight?' That better? And if you wanna punch me in the face, you know, you'll have to get in line."

Relief washed through me, as powerful as the lust I'd felt earlier. It left me feeling shaky. My voice was shaking, too, but with suppressed laughter. "And tomorrow, and the next night, and the night after that, and as soon as your leg heals up, we're switching. You know as well as I do that the bottom always has more fun." I felt him shiver. "So don't give me the 'You need time to get your shit together' speech, okay? It's insulting. If you'll promise me you'll knock that off, I'll give up my place in the 'Punch Jack O'Neill' line."

He laughed, and held me harder, and I leaned against him and felt his laughter quiver into me, felt his joy echo deeply, through my whole body. When his laugh trailed off, he said, "Yeah. Okay. Deal."

I settled back, on my heels, still touching him, and his frown had dissipated into just a little worried crease in his forehead. He brought his hand up to trace my cheekbone, then cup my jaw. He thumbed my lower lip. It made me want to kiss him. I waited, searching his eyes. The fear and reluctance were gone.

He said, softly, "Be a hell of a thing, trying to keep this secret."

"I'll add it to the list," I said, and something about my tone made him laugh again and pull me close. "Ow, shit," he said, because he'd forgotten that he was hurt and that he had to be careful, and he'd bumped his leg somehow. So I leaned back and awkwardly got my legs refolded. He carefully held me, finding an angle from which to lean us together that didn't disturb his leg. I tilted my head back to look at him. His eyes were closed again, but the frown was gone entirely, and while I watched his face, he opened his eyes, and that quirky smile was back.

"So, where'd my crossword book get to? I had one more in there to finish. And get me some more coffee, would you? You're one lousy nursemaid. And look -- I think you got come all over my bandage."

"Yes, sir, right away, sir," I said, grinning, and turned to gather up our empty mugs.

"One lousy _naked_ nursemaid," he amended.

"Just wait until I try to explain this to Janet," I said, and his laughter followed me down the hall.

end.


End file.
